Statement: Choices that matter= NONE

[Calarand]

The differences are subtle, but they are there and my guess is that they will be gradually getting bigger as the story progresses - every decision we make does get a reaction from our companions, be it approval, amusement, disapproval or a simple "your action will be remembered". My guess is that these reaction accumulate and are stored in game files, and they will influence many things down the road.

 

A good example of how it works is Koth's behavior towards the end of chapter 9:

My inquisitor was flirting with him, but she also chose to kneel before Valkorion and gleefully used his powers every time. In the "relax in the cantina" scene, when I chose the option to flirt-talk with one of the companions, Koth stormed out saying to count him out, because he did not sign up for the things she's been doing, effectively cutting off the romance before it could even start. That's a pretty big deal, as far as I am concerned, and I think it was amazing how my choices made a difference there.

 

[Max_Killjoy]

lets be honest... BW has already stated it was too difficult and time consuming to continue with 8 different stories for each of the classes. There is no way that our "choices" will matter in the long run, BW is creating 1 singular story with slight differences branching off the sides.

 

The end goal will be the exact same, how you got there will be barely different from another person.

 

4.0 = Knights of the Choices Matter a Little Bit if you Dont Think too Much

 

Plot of ME2, "choices" of ME3.

[trueKieran]

Plot of ME2, "choices" of ME3.

 

I knew it was a bad sign that the only colour crystals that remained are red, green and blue.

Edited October 27, 2015 by trueKieran

[Max_Killjoy]

I knew it was a bad sign that the only colour crystals that remained are red, green and blue.

 

I hadn't thought of that... +1 to you.

[Stradlin]

Story having no major differences between classes at all is something one kinda saw coming. If you spend any measure of time reading between lines of pre-release hype, nothing in it is news for you.

 

What I did NOT see coming and would not have guessed is how force user- exclusive the story was. It absolutely feels story of your char if you play it as Sith or Jedi. Idea of playing through EA's NFL 2015 as my Trooper feels much less alienating than the thought of doing KOTFE on him. Hero off Republic Armed Forces. Duty, Honor, Top Notch Training. Heavy hydraulic combat armor, pulse rifle, explosives and PERSONAL DEAD GOD FORCE GHOST. Great. All set. o7.

 

For what it's worth, I really enjoyed the story on my Sorc. Very nice fit for multiple reasons.

 

What I do NOT enjoy, and what DOES feel alarming and sad is how it is already very common here to see people speaking of KOTFE in past tense. It is a nice, if ridiculously easy single player video game. For 10 hours.

 

I love the idea of forcing people planetside, grinding old heroics. Honestly, it makes a pretty interesting take of end game. Fact everything is ridiculously easy, simple and soloable destroys it all though.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Stradlin

[Nathan_Cousland]

The differences are subtle, but they are there and my guess is that they will be gradually getting bigger as the story progresses - every decision we make does get a reaction from our companions, be it approval, amusement, disapproval or a simple "your action will be remembered". My guess is that these reaction accumulate and are stored in game files, and they will influence many things down the road.

 

A good example of how it works is Koth's behavior towards the end of chapter 9:

My inquisitor was flirting with him, but she also chose to kneel before Valkorion and gleefully used his powers every time. In the "relax in the cantina" scene, when I chose the option to flirt-talk with one of the companions, Koth stormed out saying to count him out, because he did not sign up for the things she's been doing, effectively cutting off the romance before it could even start. That's a pretty big deal, as far as I am concerned, and I think it was amazing how my choices made a difference there.

 

I know you mean well with that, but too little for me to care. I cannot give any credence to any "choices matter" marketing speak when the most commonly made choice (who to romance) is ONCE AGAIN BUGGED OUT. If the entire base game's biggest, or at least longest choice, is bugged, what does it matter if you romance Koth? He'll just be bugged out of a future expansion, anyhow.

Edited October 28, 2015 by Nathan_Cousland

[PoliteAssasin]

LEL at all these people in here who think choices don't matter. I've played multiple playthroughs of this expansion already, and noticed pretty significant differences. Try actually paying attention next time around.

[Nathan_Cousland]

LEL at all these people in here who think choices don't matter. I've played multiple playthroughs of this expansion already, and noticed pretty significant differences. Try actually paying attention next time around.

 

Bully for you. Paying all the attention possible hardly fixes bugs and other issues that cause this game to be different through, and best, subjective subtext and sugary titles.

 

Granted, I could just still be better that my game is borked. D:

[Slurmez]

but but....you may lose/gain influence or even lose one or two of the masses and masses of companions that you get......

[trancejeremy]

LEL at all these people in here who think choices don't matter. I've played multiple playthroughs of this expansion already, and noticed pretty significant differences. Try actually paying attention next time around.

 

But apparently not any you can actually list as an example?

 

Tanno Vik seems to be about the only one and does that have any effect other than him not appearing in a later cutscene, defending the ship? (And the email)

 

What really irked me was the example all the fan sites cited of this wonderful ability to affect the story through choice was whether or not you kill a cop or not. No matter what you do, the other one comes back after you.

Edited October 28, 2015 by trancejeremy

[Nathan_Cousland]

But apparently not any you can actually list as an example?

 

Tanno Vik seems to be about the only one and does that have any effect other than him not appearing in a later cutscene, defending the ship? (And the email)

 

What really irked me was the example all the fan sites cited of this wonderful ability to affect the story through choice was whether or not you kill a cop or not. No matter what you do, the other one comes back after you.

 

And if I remember right, even sparing them doesn't turn out the most impactful later. I'll avoid any spoilers here.

[WorldSmasher]

Bully for you. Paying all the attention possible hardly fixes bugs and other issues that cause this game to be different through, and best, subjective subtext and sugary titles.

 

Granted, I could just still be better that my game is borked. D:

 

Even after re-reading what you typed. I din't understand you. You made no sense. Try explaining yourself again.

[Beohbe]

Been awhile but in the first few chapters of the class stories choices mattered yes?

 

So, now we have to wait until this full "Expansion" and I use that term loosely, is released to see if our choices matter...so instead of say $60 for a normal expansion for an MMO...Im paying,what $100+ if I stay subbed the whole time...for an "expansion" that in the first half of its story didnt deliver anything it promised...

 

But the idea from some of you is "Wait it COULD POSSIBLY matter later"...but again you have no proof that it will matter later...so its maybe a 50/50 shot that they could keep the promise they made...

 

After:

 

They pretty much screwed over the crafting community with the changes they made

Turned Companions into glorified Dress-Up Dolls...I mean Mattel makes Barbie and Star Wars toys, might as well get a Barbie skin for the companions..

Took Low-Level Coms Merchants Away...meaning for my Low-Level toons to get purple mods I have to buy them on the GTN...

But wait, they nerfed the cash drop rates from mobs, making it harder to get money to buy stuff on the GTN...

 

 

For What exactly...Oh, I remember...maybe 6 hours of story content, thats so Blatant a copy of another Video Game that Im shocked they arent getting slammed by reviewers calling it flat out plagirism...with the only hope of the desperate, that the next installment is any good, and actually delivers on promises made...

 

You could unsub, wait for all the chapters to come out, and then resub. Would end up costing you only 15 bucks and save you the time and energy required to stamp your feet like a child for the next year.

See? Choices do matter.

[Darth-Obvious]

I took the first 9 Chapters to be the intro to KOTFE, honestly. All these, "Koth will remember your cruelty," or "Arcann won't forget this," have me thinking that my actions will come to bite me in the *** later on. Also, Koth yelled at me when I met Theron and Lana because of my evil actions then he said that if I don't lead them in the right direction he'd have a problem with me or something and he stormed off.

 

Which is good. I actually want to decapitate Koth.

 

The "X character will remember this" thing is something they just straight up took from Telltale's The Walking Dead, only it doesn't really matter in SWTOR. It barely mattered in The Walking Dead. It's just a device to make you think your choices mean more than they do.

[PoliteAssasin]

But apparently not any you can actually list as an example?

 

Tanno Vik seems to be about the only one and does that have any effect other than him not appearing in a later cutscene, defending the ship? (And the email)

 

What really irked me was the example all the fan sites cited of this wonderful ability to affect the story through choice was whether or not you kill a cop or not. No matter what you do, the other one comes back after you.

 

I'm not going to give off a list in the middle of a thread for your edification. The comical denial of choices and consequences in this expansion doesn't negate reality. I and the many others who can recognize the differences will continue to do so, and enjoy them.

[Alssaran]

Does anyone remember how we got a major different story in Mass Effect one based on our choices, for example how we didn't end up at the Citadel fighting Saren? And do you remember how choosing not to undergo Jedi training in KOTOR made us go to four entirely different planets for an entirely different purpose than to find the Star Maps? And do you remember that one time in Dragon Age: Origins when we could choose to abandon Ferelden and just go to Tevinter instead?

 

Now read it again...

 

The difference was always about minor changes in Bioware games. At least up until the ending. Nothing makes me believe it isn't the same here.

Edited October 28, 2015 by Alssaran

[trueKieran]

What really irked me was the example all the fan sites cited of this wonderful ability to affect the story through choice was whether or not you kill a cop or not. No matter what you do, the other one comes back after you.

 

Well that's the beauty of it, this wasn't just any choice, it was the choice. It was the one that Bioware sold as an example of how our choices would matter and it would have been so easy to do, a 5 second cutscene where they spot the heroes from afar and turn to walk away would have been enough, or the one who's parter got killed by Arcann spotting us and telling the other one he didn't see anything once he arrived, could have even suggested that we might have made a future ally. What did we get instead? The Bioware devs laughing their asses off that people believed them again!

 

And as for Tanno Vic

I didn't kill him, but from what I gathered he wrote the mail shortly after we got the engineer, so that means the last I saw of him was him fighting an endless army of soldiers and telling his men not to run, in other words without any intend to leave, so by now he's either dead here too or as immortal as the emperor to get out of this alive.

 

The comical denial

Oh the irony....

Edited October 28, 2015 by trueKieran

[Nathan_Cousland]

Even after re-reading what you typed. I din't understand you. You made no sense. Try explaining yourself again.

 

Did I use too many words? I mean, I see a single typo (I meant 'bitter' and not 'better'), but I think it's fairly self explanatory; there is no amount of attentiveness that fixes bugs and glitches in game that causes the story to not acknowledge choices that we made.

[Nathan_Cousland]

Well that's the beauty of it, this wasn't just any choice, it was the choice. It was the one that Bioware sold as an example of how our choices would matter and it would have been so easy to do, a 5 second cutscene where they spot the heroes from afar and turn to walk away would have been enough, or the one who's parter got killed by Arcann spotting us and telling the other one he didn't see anything once he arrived, could have even suggested that we might have made a future ally. What did we get instead? The Bioware devs laughing their asses off that people believed them again!

 

And as for Tanno Vic

I didn't kill him, but from what I gathered he wrote the mail shortly after we got the engineer, so that means the last I saw of him was him fighting an endless army of soldiers and telling his men not to run, in other words without any intend to leave, so by now he's either dead here too or as immortal as the emperor to get out of this alive.

 

 

Oh the irony....

 

See.... if I recall and SPOILERS HERE but doesn't he doe anyhow to hot n crazy? We spared him, sure, but he's done anyhow.

[Nothing_Shines]

While my BH's ego is definitely stoked that the immortal God-emperor in her head says she is the only being EVER to come close to him in awesomeness, it's definitely clear that KOTFE is the continuation of the JEDI KNIGHT's storyline and he'd much rather be in that character's head.

 

BW looked at what they had in the bin left over from all the previous plans for SWTOR that were scrapped for time/budget or cancelled outright or left on the wall of crazy and pieced together their best approximation of an ending for their version of KOTOR 3 and the Jedi Knight has always been the "boy, we wish we were making KOTOR 3 here, but there's 7 other character class stories to deal with" story.

 

Argue all you want that the trooper, agent, smuggler or bounty hunter are all just as viable as equals to and vessels for the god-emperor, but you're just wrong. The Sith characters at least fit as mirrors to the Jedi, and KOTOR has always let you walk the dark path in non-canon runs, but they didn't even bother making that path unique here.

 

And those "potential companions" you can kill or not are just skins. Their story is over. They will have zero further impact beyond being crafting mules. Bioware already knows which companions they want to or can use (some VAs are dead) and which they don't care about at all and good luck getting further story or dialogue beyond an email out of the ones they didn't single out.

 

EDIT: I start rambling here because ANGER...

 

Anyone remember freeing Revan from Maelstrom Prison with Lord Scourge as their companion? You know, the guy who betrayed Revan and murdered the Exile, the Force ghost chick that had been appearing throughout the Jedi Prisoner side storyline? Yeah, he didn't have ONE WORD to say about anything about those two flashpoints, before during or after. And neither did the people he betrayed.

 

How about when you brought Lord Scourge to the final fight with Revan on Yavin? Anything? NOPE.

 

They gave you Lord Scourge, tied his background to major characters and events in a tie-in novel and then did nothing with him when it would have made the most sense and mattered the most to anyone concerned with story.

 

Might as well take HK51 or Treek or the Ship Droid thru the flashpoints and final Revan fight. Makes as much sense story-wise.

 

Bioware has been doing this for YEARS. They lay out a million plot threads and character connections and do exactly nothing with 99% of them. They make it look super complicated and intricate at first but then just don't finish anything. It's easier to write ONE basic story for ONE type of character on a rigid plot railroad with lots of sign posts at crossings you can't go down, than to even bother actually laying some track on the spurs with a significant variance in the dialogue between Force- and non-Force sensitive characters, but they keep hyping their choices matter schtick and I KEEP FALLING FOR IT because Star Wars.

Edited October 28, 2015 by Nothing_Shines

[Keedmo]

I just hope we get to pick our favorite color at the end of it all. Red, Blue or Green? Tough 'choice.'

[Ottoattack]

"You know what is the definition of insanity? Is trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result." I still see people trying SWTOR stories over and over and expecting choices that matter. Has this happened in the past? Why do you think it will happen now or in the future:rak_02:

 

To be fair, you cannot really in an MMO do "choices" that are significant, because the world and many of its NPCs need to follow through a specific pass for all players. When I think of choices in a game, I find the Witcher series, particularly the second installment to be a great example. How the story starts and end does not change (with the exception of slight variations), but about 40-50% of the game and some major characters in the story are different depending on your choices. That is a terrific model that meets all ends, but obviously requires effort, intelligence and innovation. BW does not have any of the above.

 

So "You know what is the definition of insanity?"

[Frenesi]

"You know what is the definition of insanity? Is trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result." I still see people trying SWTOR stories over and over and expecting choices that matter. Has this happened in the past? Why do you think it will happen now or in the future:rak_02:

 

To be fair, you cannot really in an MMO do "choices" that are significant, because the world and many of its NPCs need to follow through a specific pass for all players. When I think of choices in a game, I find the Witcher series, particularly the second installment to be a great example. How the story starts and end does not change (with the exception of slight variations), but about 40-50% of the game and some major characters in the story are different depending on your choices. That is a terrific model that meets all ends, but obviously requires effort, intelligence and innovation. BW does not have any of the above.

 

So "You know what is the definition of insanity?"

 

Agent. 4 different endings, if I remember right. Yea, they also got invalidated by further plot advances, but agent had more then enough choices and actual consequences to them

[Ottoattack]

Agent. 4 different endings, if I remember right. Yea, they also got invalidated by further plot advances, but agent had more then enough choices and actual consequences to them

 

Lets see, how does these changes impact the story line progression within the agent story? Do you go to different locations? Do different missions? Have different NPCs companions? Do any of these choices make a different on Makeb, SoR or any other story content?!

 

If you think the ending being free agent, agent of the Sith or Hand of Jadus is choices, then good for you. I want choices the impact my game play experience, so I might actually consider running the story again.

[demotivator]

I have played through KOTFE 3 times: Knight, Smuggler, Consular.

 

The choices are the same. The events are the same. The dialogue may have a different turn of phrase here and there yet it is mostly, the same. LS/DS choices occur and the plot remains the same. Save one dude; his partner still shows up and tries to kill you later.

 

Nothing makes a difference.

 

So much for choices that matter. Bioware said the story would run differently depending on your decisions and class; however, this has turned out to be a complete lie.

 

We wanted more class stories and what we got was a railroaded mess.

 

I disagree. For instance, with one character I killed Tanno Vik. You can bet that at one point you are going to be able to recruit him. That character who killed him will never be able to. That was a choice that will matter. That's the thing that you are probably missing, things will unfold later.

Edited October 28, 2015 by demotivator